Three Women Disappear

by James Patterson

  I was too late.

  They went over the falls before I could even complete my yell. “Aaron!” I cried. The involuntary expulsion of your husband’s name.

  I thought I could get to them in time but I didn’t anticipate just how much the current would accelerate near the drop. They simply disappeared over the edge. Followed by my useless shouts.

  “Aaron!”

  It was as if they had been yanked below a horizontal line of existence. I was so shocked by what I saw that I halted in my tracks, struggling to maintain any rational grasp on the situation.

  Within a moment, I snapped back into awareness and resumed the chase to see where they had landed. I arrived at the edge on the left bank and searched the river below. It was as large a waterfall as I’d feared, with one factor in our favor: the plunge pool wasn’t rocky. There was enough clear depth down there to accommodate a full drop. Within several torturous seconds I saw them, two heads bobbing along. They’d survived.

  In a wider section of the river, with only slow rapids, they were floating in a froth that lasted maybe five seconds before pushing its fresh contents downstream. I scurried down the wet crags and was soon keeping up with them along the gentle current. They were thankfully moving much slower now.

  “She’s okay,” Aaron shouted to me.

  I skidded on my butt down a rocky, dirty incline. He pulled himself onto the bank just as I arrived. Sierra was wide-eyed, frozen in fear. She wasn’t speaking.

  He handed her to me so that he could finally collapse. I hugged them both, embracing their icy skin. He looked ready to pass out, but I didn’t feel good about him surrendering consciousness.

  “Not here, babe,” I said.

  He was ghostly pale from a loss of blood and from the water. The air was warm, but the water was cold. And he’d pushed himself through the entire ordeal running on fumes, on adrenaline.

  “Let’s get over to those crags,” I said to him. “See? Down by that first boulder?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Babe?” I said to him, waiting for him to find the strength to speak.

  “Crags,” he finally replied, deflating.

  I looked at Sierra. She still seemed shell-shocked, but physically unscathed. “You okay?” I asked her.

  “Crags,” she agreed. My cooperative tag team.

  I grabbed my husband by the hand and helped him up. We thus began the four-legged, three-person limp toward the boulders looming nearby. I’d also spotted some cavelike openings, amid the spill of giant rock fragments. We could hide in one of those. This would be important—to keep us out of the direct sun, away from animals, away from wind, and away from the cold of night, if we were still here then.

  It’s important, when taking refuge, to make sure someone knows your chosen locale. We did have a signal flare in the emergency kit I had grabbed. It had a granola bar, a magnifying glass, a first aid kit, a canteen, and the flare. And I’d glimpsed what I thought was a small town in the distance while running along the river. It was far away, but I had to assume it would have a few residents who might be looking in our direction.

  “I think we should send up the flare,” I said to him.

  He could barely keep his eyes open.

  “Or should we wait?” I asked.

  He was too weary but found enough determination to give me a meek thumbs-up before fading again. I had no idea if that thumb meant yes, wait, or yes, send it.

  “Uh,” I said. “Did…?”

  So I sent it.

  PFFFFFaaaaffff! The colorful firework popped in the sky about five hundred feet above us. Sierra was in awe. Aaron barely noticed. I hated to do this in broad daylight, but nightfall might be longer than we could wait.

  Once inside the cave, my husband collapsed on the dirt. I’d intended to find a good spot for him, but gravity had made that decision for us and I didn’t have the heart to move him.

  “This’ll work,” I said.

  I started to lecture him about the importance of elevating the wound. He had a gash on his forehead, and its flow needed stanching. But after five sentences of lecturing, I realized he was out cold. Sierra was the real surprise. I’d assumed this catastrophic situation would render her a stuttering wreck, but she was calm, serene. It’s a trait I’d love to say she inherits from her mother, but Aaron is the eye of the hurricane in our lives.

  “You’re my rock, babe,” I said to him. “You know that?”

  Which brought me to a bleak conundrum. He needed help. It wasn’t just the blood loss or the bad leg, but the prospect of head trauma. His eyes were rolling back in his head. His blackouts were coming without warning. His speech was slurred. This man needed medical attention soon or he might die.

  And the monstrously harsh reality was that to save him, I might have to leave him there.

  It wasn’t even midmorning yet.

  Chapter 5

  Should I stay or go find help on my own, back to that damn rock face? I was in a foreign landscape, unsure how to navigate its terrain.

  But what if Aaron’s skull was fractured?

  I’m terrible when it comes to first aid. All I could reference in my head were flashes of random TV shows. Any instance of a chiseled ambulance driver pushing on the chest of an injured pedestrian. What did they do with the head? What did they say to the head?

  “Sierra, I need you to do something brave for Mommy,” I said to her.

  She came over right away, with a generally stunned look on her face. She stood in front of me, patiently waiting for me to tell her about the next calamity.

  “Sierra, I need you to press on Daddy’s head.”

  She stood there for a moment, then said gravely, “But Daddy has a bad head.”

  “Yes, and that’s why you have to press. Like this. See?”

  I showed her. His plaid button-down shirt had enough fluff to absorb some wetness without getting soggy. I could tie it, but I didn’t want to move his head any more than necessary.

  I made a map in my head and did some calculations, before turning to my husband. “Aaron, honey, listen to me if you can. I’m going to leave you for about three hours. Ninety minutes out. Ninety back. That gets me five miles. Sierra will be here. I need to find help and get a helicopter for you.”

  I waited for a response from him. I got silence.

  “Daddy wants a helicopter?” asked Sierra.

  “I’m going to hike toward the junction at 89,” I said to my blank husband. “That gives us the best chance of seeing traffic. Because the road we were on was pretty dead.” Dead is a bad word. “I mean…I have hope…that I might see a few cars and flag one down. Maybe the SUV that hit us.”

  He didn’t stir. Nothing.

  “Aaron?” I put my hand on his shoulder.

  He was still. Disturbingly still. I could barely detect any breath; he did have a pulse, but it was weak.

  I took a deep breath. I turned to Sierra. I summoned my best Solemn Mom face, making sure not to enter Scary Mom face–zone, and said, “Okay, Sierra, I need you to do something very important.”

  “Is Daddy sick?”

  “Yes. He needs a doctor. I’m going to find one.” I was ready for her to freak out that I’d be leaving. She stayed still as I continued. “The important thing is Daddy will need to rest as much as possible, so even though—”

  “I can watch him,” she said.

  She stood there like a brave little soldier, perfectly at attention.

  “You can?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she nodded slowly. “I can hold Daddy Koala’s paw.”

  “He might wake up and say strange things but don’t worry, he’s being silly. Just tell him that Mommy went to get a doctor, and he needs to stay still.”

  “Okay. Don’t worry, Mommy.”

  “I love you, Sierra.” I kissed her on the forehead and grabbed the hiking pack.

  We had one granola bar left. It was murder trying to think of how to divvy this measly thing up. Some for Sierra? Some for
Aaron, who probably wouldn’t even eat it? Some for me, the one who might have to sprint for two hours straight? How do you divide the lone granola bars of life?

  We had planned to stop for lunch in Chasm before heading to Jed’s house. Despite everything, I could hear her stomach already rumbling.

  I put the whole thing in his jeans pocket and smiled at Sierra, relying on her to decide to eat it if she needed to, or sacrifice it if Daddy needed it more. Me? I was fine. I could run on pure anxiety juice. I was already overdosing on it.

  I began to head out and was close to the mouth of the cave when I heard Aaron’s voice behind me. He was starting to talk!

  I spun around just as he was already slipping back into a deep sleep. He’d summoned every last ounce of his energy to utter a sentence that would occupy my mind for the rest of the day.

  “Be careful who you trust.”

  Chapter 6

  I was alone now. Not in the spiritual sense. Not in the romantic sense. But in the imperiled sense. The survival game. I was now hiking away from everything that mattered to me.

  How does a small child survive in a cave? She would never leave her dad’s side, but what if her dad’s side left her? What if the unthinkable happened while I was gone? What if my husband died? What if tiny Sierra ended up there alone?

  I was walking across incredibly jagged crags. Rocks sharp enough to cut flesh, rocks that could severely hurt me if I twisted my ankle. But worse than the pain if I was crippled—Sierra would be alone. No one would know where we were, where my husband was. She’d be stranded.

  With that in mind, I crossed the rubble painfully slowly. The hesitation felt necessary, but it was a risk in itself; hesitation breeds bad decisions.

  Be careful who you trust.

  Why would Aaron tell me that, out here in the land of zero population? Nobody lives here. Nobody camps here. Nobody was here. I’d started to truly see it on this hike. We’d be lucky to find anyone at all.

  But I had to maintain hope. Maybe today is the day there is a nurse convention in the desert crags. I was heading for elevation, to the closest viable ridge. From there, I figured I’d be afforded at least a twenty-mile vantage point. There was a fairly clean path up the rock face on my left that looked like a few miles of gradual slope, before zigzagging back up the hillside for another stretch of gradual slope to the top of my target ridge.

  Or I could climb.

  Climbing would be risky—possibly deadly—but I’d be saving myself hours of walking, a tough economization to resist. I could be up that ridge in half an hour. It wasn’t steep, and limestone is a safe rock. I’d climbed tougher routes. My instincts said I could handle it.

  And yet my mind kept arguing with the numbers.

  This particular hill offered a decently high chance of success. Let’s say 80 percent. The problem was that I’d be facing that sort of choice more than once. And every time I chose the riskier option, I’d be multiplying the risk factor times all the future risk factors. That’s 80 percent times 80 percent times—

  “Oh, my God, Miranda,” I said out loud, “just make a decision.”

  I’d just wasted minutes trying to figure out how to avoid wasting minutes. So I chose to climb. I started walking toward the cliff face and was soon monkeying up it. There were handholds to grip. And the footholds I found felt solid. My confidence increased as I looked straight up and had a clear visual of most of my route.

  It really didn’t take long to reach the top, and I had an immediate task scheduled for myself. Research.

  I’d sent up the signal flare thinking I saw sunlight glinting on a town, like maybe Red Bluff.

  But I was wrong, I was now seeing a harsh reality. There was no city, no town. From this mercilessly clear vantage point I could see that what I thought was a town was…just a mirage. A desert mirage. The oldest cliché in the book.

  I was flooded with regret. I’d sent up our only signal flare with no purpose.

  With that bad news suddenly came good news—

  Crack!

  What sounded like a rifle shot was startlingly loud in the quiet landscape, and echoed. I didn’t think it could be more than a half mile away, though I had no idea which direction.

  I instantly rejoiced at the prospect of hearing hunters in the distance. My first thought was, Humans. Salvation. Sure, it was dangerous to have bullets flying around. Most people would rightfully cringe and take cover. But in this case, bullets were music to my ears.

  Crack! The next shot echoed around me. Even closer.

  I don’t know what you would hunt in the desert, though.…Maybe it was a search party?

  I stood tall and shouted, “Hey! Help! I need help!” I was waving my arms like crazy. “Whoever you are, please help me!”

  I scanned the area, waiting for a response that didn’t come.

  “I’m right here!” I said even louder. “Help!”

  And the valley said nothing.

  “Here on this ridge!” I yelled.

  I kept repeating this routine for a half minute. Until I saw something that changed my mind about how the rest of my life might unfold.

  The shooter—not very far away, maybe a hundred feet at most—well, he could see me. He was looking right at me, that was clear. He was on the ridge too, on higher ground. And he was aiming at me. Directly at me. Crack! Another shot was fired in my direction. From him. At me.

  “Hey! What the hell is wrong with you!?” I screamed.

  As I recognized who he was.

  Fat.

  Bearded.

  Ugly.

  The SUV driver.

  Chapter 7

  This was an attack. This wasn’t an accident. This man was trying to shoot me.

  I froze for longer than I care to admit. I always imagined that in a situation like this a thousand thoughts would race through my mind—some emotional, some practical, some an inventory of my life—but I was mentally blank. I eventually spun around and clumsily fled down the nearest slope.

  I only had one viable thought in my head, not a very impressive one: to duck behind a bush.

  My laughable instinct was quickly vetoed by my legs anyway, because my legs said run.

  So I ran.

  Movement became autonomous. I sprinted down the slope, creating a flurry of dust behind me. Crack, he fired another shot through the air at my back. Was this his third or fourth? Maybe his tenth, for all I knew. I’d never been shot at before. I felt irrationally insulted.

  “You’re shooting at me!” I yelled, turning.

  Is that all I can come up with?

  “Stop!” I added.

  I was crouching down again, my back to the dirt slope, taking cover, trying to figure out what to do. I wasn’t in charge of my voice.

  The man with the gun said nothing but kept coming. He stormed across the patches of loose shale, relentlessly focused.

  I knew I had to keep moving, but I couldn’t see anywhere to go. I looked back and yelled again. “My name is Miranda Cooper! I’m not whoever you think I am! I don’t even know you!”

  If I had to identify him in a police sketch I’d say: bearded, fat, ugly. But I could add: mean, with hate in his eyes. Was this guy actually trying to ram us off the road? He seemed absolutely oblivious to what I was saying now.

  Was he trying to ram my husband off the road?

  Crack, another shot. Another miss.

  Was he himself a husband? A jealous one? Did Aaron sleep with somebody? An affair?

  Where were we headed in our minivan? To hide? In the midst of mortal peril, my crazed brain was now conjuring up all the grotesque situations that my husband could’ve entangled himself in. I was picturing a hotel in something like Atlanta or St. Louis. A nice one. Two hundred dollars a night. The hotel bartender announcing last call and Aaron looking at his voluptuous business partner, whoever she was, someone with a sexy neck, while they both giggled about whose room to go up to.

  No.

  It’s not possible. Not Aaron. He
was taking us on a trip to meet a new friend he’d met on the job. Some guy named Jed. My husband doesn’t cheat.

  And I know every wife thinks the “not him” thing, that hers is the one prince in the world who wouldn’t roam; but infidelity is beneath Aaron.

  The man was now close enough that I could hear his breathing and grunting over his footsteps. He was closing the gap between us, scuffling himself down the hillside across the shale.

  I looked around for places to hide or for a covered path to run along. He had a rifle with a scope. I started wishing I knew enough about guns to discern if his was a hunting rifle or a cop rifle. Useless speculation.

  Something else occurred to me. My first possibly non-useless idea. Go back uphill.

  If he’s silly enough to choose the shale-side of a hill over the limestone-side of a hill once, he might be silly enough to choose it a second time. A choice with consequences. Because when a rockslide happens, even if it’s just a small area that collapses—you’re going to go down, hard.

  The trick would be to get him to chase me up the south face. I’d be unprotected if I baited him. I looked up at the potential routes, searching for safety zones. Nope. It was all exposed.

  I didn’t have much longer to stew on it. I just needed to gather enough confidence to traverse the steepest part of the slope. From where I was standing, it looked incredibly intimidating. Make a decision, Miranda. If I took a curved path, the shape of a question mark.…

  Crack, another shot sailed over my crouched position. I looked down. I wasn’t in the best shoes: some cross-trainers I bought for the Hip Hop Cardio class I never took.

  They were going to have to outperform their mission statement, though. They needed to give me traction up the only road out of hell.

  Chapter 8

  I sprinted up the gravel incline just as, crack, another gunshot exploded in the air behind me, instantly followed by the sound of dirt puffing up by my feet. He was getting closer. I kept climbing. This was only going to work if I managed to do one particular thing—not get hit by a bullet.